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Transportation

Americans have always been a people on the move—on rails, roads, and waterways (for travel through the air, visit the National Air and Space Museum). In the transportation collections, railroad objects range from tools, tracks, and many train models to the massive 1401, a 280-ton locomotive built in 1926. Road vehicles include coaches, buggies, wagons, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and automobiles—from the days before the Model T to modern race cars. The accessories of travel are part of the collections, too, from streetlights, gas pumps, and traffic signals to goggles and overcoats.

In the maritime collections, more than 7,000 design plans and scores of ship models show the evolution of sailing ships and other vessels. Other items range from scrimshaw, photographs, and marine paintings to life jackets from the Titanic.

This model is a cutaway of the German steamship Frisia. Originally launched as the Alsatia, the Frisia was a transatlantic passenger ship, with room for 820 passengers. Built in 1872 by Caird & Co. in Scotland, Frisia was owned by the Hamburg-American Line. Rigged for both sail and steam power, the Frisia could make the Atlantic crossing in about 12 days.

Many of the passengers who traveled aboard the Frisia were immigrants bound for America. In 1876, a group of some 70 Russian immigrants boarded the Frisia in Hamburg, Germany. Originally from Kratzke, a city in Russia near the Volga River, these men, women, and children left their homes with hopes of owning farmland in the United States. Upon arriving in New York, the Kratzke immigrants traveled west and settled in Russell County, Kansas, in October 1876. Although life was hard on the prairie, most immigrants did not return to their homeland. More Russian immigrants arrived in December 1876, and together they founded the Bender Hill community in Kansas.

The Frisia was one of the last iron steamships of its era. Shortly afterwards, steel-hulled ships became standard. Following its run as an immigrant ship, the Frisia was renamed and sold to Italian owners who converted it into a coal carrier. In 1902, the SS Frisia, then known as the Arno, was scrapped in Italy.